


come hell or high water

by waferkya



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e08 Raving, M/M, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Stiles is left with right now is a dull, thrumming pain in his bones, and the sudden, terrible realization it's been a while since the last time he thought of his mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come hell or high water

It's been a while since the last time Stiles thought of his mother. He's not proud of it, he can't bring up any pride anymore not even in a heavily sarcastic _hello world this is Stiles Stilinski and yep I have officially changed my first name to Screw Up, ain't that simply amazing?_ sort of way.

Not even mock-up happiness works for him anymore, and that's been Stiles' last resort and best friend, Scott notwithstanding, through a lot of shitty moments of his life. They took that from him, too, and all he's left with right now is a dull, thrumming pain in his bones, and the sudden, terrible realization it's been a while since the last time he thought of his mother.

Fuck. He gets to be the worst son ever both in this world _and_ the next. That's some hardcore shit, crossing the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead; the Buddha himself might want to give him a medal, or maybe Hades. Now, that would be pretty awesome, if only it wasn't a friggin' medal for how much of a _disaster_ he is at the one task they ever gave him — being a son. Not even a brilliant, perfect one, just — just a son, really, one who doesn't end up in jail or at any crime scene or, you know, lie compulsively to his _sheriff_ father.

A son who doesn't mingle with creepy werewolves, bloodthirsty beasts and heavily armed friggin' _hunters_.

A son who doesn't — do any of the things Stiles does on a daily basis like they're okay, really. Probably that's the core of the problem, the fact that this, _all_ of this, right now, it's normal, regular Stiles-stuff. Like, circling a giant building with some tree ashes even though you barely had enough left to fill up a thimble. Kidnapping and drugging and questioning your pal — well, Jackson's not exactly a pal, really; but anyway, it's _Jackson_ , — who also happens to be controlled by some nut job, possibly your nut job of a chemistry teacher, who finds it funny to go around murdering people for whatever delirious vendetta of crap he has going on.

Or, you know. Mingling with creepy werewolves. Bloodthirsty beasts. Heavily armed hunters.

Things that shouldn't be possible, things that shouldn't exist outside the horribly Photoshopped poster of a secondhand B-movie your distant weed-smoking cousin once suggested you should watch, all of that, all of this, is now so much fucking okay it's just logical that Stiles would stop thinking about his mother, just like Scott stopped worrying or even remembering about school, grades, whatever, why haven't they dropped out already anyway.

The point is, it doesn't make it any easier on Stiles; it doesn't make it any better.

Probably it's just that he's coming off the adrenaline waves that kept washing over him over and over again all night because, seriously, this was some pretty hectic party even for Stiles' standards as of late. Probably it's nothing, really. Probably, he'll be over brooding and moping around in a couple of hours. He wishes he had some sort of button to force his brain to produce more endorphins; like when Derek broke Erica's arm — thanks, that's really a pretty memory to be thinking of right now, — to trigger the healing process. Stiles could jump off the clinic's roof, it's barely a floor and a half. If he doesn't break his neck, then friendly hormones are a given, and if he does, well. Better not to think about that, he's not ready to see some positive outcome from his own death.

He could steal some happy pills from the doc's stash. Do they give animals the sort of painkillers they give to people? What does a dog on morphine feel like? Oh God, _what_ the heck would happen if you gave morphine to a sloth? Would it, like, be so slow it'd actually start to move backwards, like a rewinding VCR?

How long has it been since you took your Adderal, Stiles? He really doesn't want to know, just like he really doesn't want to know if he managed to get all the wolfsbane-laced shrapnel out of Boyd and properly detoxified him, or what the doc's doing to fix Scott in the other room.

He's not ready to know that his best friend his dead, or dying, or that he could've spared all the effort it took not to puke everywhere while he dug into Boyd's wounds with a fucking pair of pliers because, guess what, he's very useless and Boyd died anyway.

They say hope is a terrible, destructive force; Stiles loves it more than anything, because as long as you have hope it means there's a chance and if there's a chance — if there's a chance, it's not over yet.

Stiles would take a shitty open ending without closure and a bare silver lining in the distance over any of the perfectly wrapped, artistically impeccable depressing ones, seriously. Which is why he's managed not to freak out that much about his father's _leave of absence_ so far: they didn't fire him. They might still take him back. There's still a chance and if his father is even half as stubborn as Stiles is — and he's probably three times as stubborn as that, — he won't give it up either. Maybe Stiles might steal another couple of detaining vehicles just to make a challenge out of it for him.

Or maybe he won't.

This is just like his mother all over again. The waiting, the hoping, the not knowing and the uselessness, it feels exactly the same; this whole werewolves-kanima-hunters situation — Stiles' life, is just like his mother's death all over again. Probably not just his life. Probably just life in general, which is such a depressing thought Stiles just has to get up and kick out some of his frustration. Air is always a fair opponent, it almost never kicks back.

Stiles ends up sprawled on the low wooden coffee table in the middle of the vet's waiting room, staring at the ceiling. Everything is so quiet he can hear himself breathe, he can hear the animals shuffling and some of them snoring in the back of the clinic. He has no idea how they can sleep with everything that's going on — isn't Derek's presence alone supposed to make them freak out?

Maybe he really is as bad an Alpha as he looks. Stiles flinches, because if that's true, dude, they're so fucked. It's not like Derek's not got the physique du role, so to speak; gee, if anything, that's all he's got, or anyway, the first and main thing anyone the Good Lord equipped with a pair of working eyes notices about him (even though Stiles is pretty sure even a blind person would notice Derek's abs, like because of the way they bend the light or the air or something, like Daredevil does). It's just that — well. He's not handling all of this that well, is he?

Plus, he bit Jackson. Is there anyone in their right mind that would ever give the bite to Jackson-fucking-Whittemore? And then he acted all surprised when Jackson turned out to be an ever worse thing than they'd expected! Seriously. Derek needs help. Not Scott's help, oh God, otherwise they'll end up mushing all over Allison in tandem. Maybe even Derek's pack would be affected, which could get mildly interested if Erica was included.

And Lydia. Throwing in Lydia just for good measure, there. Yeah. Not bad.

Anyways. Derek Hale, former sour wolf, now everyone's favorite (or not) sour _Alpha_ wolf: help severely needed. Help, of the good kind. Stiles stares at the concrete ceiling so hard the little white dots in front of his eyes actually start to form lines, and patterns. He blinks them away before it all turns into a cheap remake of _A Beautiful Mind_ because, really, that's the last thing they need.

Like, ever.

Jackson is still out there, possibly killing or maiming people. His master is still out there, too, most certainly plotting the murder of some other poor fucker whose only hope of surviving this week relies in the huge, _enormous_ hands of Derek Hale. Stiles has a pretty good idea how big those hands are, considering he's had several close encounters with them, especially his facial region, but, well, sometimes size's not all that matters.

Gee.

Derek looks like the kind of person who never, never, ever stops thinking about the loved ones he lost. You can see it in his sad, angry eyebrows; his eyes, too, sometimes give him away. Not that Stiles knows Derek's eyebrows all that well. Or his eyes. But especially not his eyebrows.

It's just that — Derek is so alone; or, well, he was, before he got himself a pack of damaged teenagers which was really, very poetic of him. And kind. As long as they don't smash Stiles around the head with pieces of his own car, you know.

Derek would probably hate Stiles if he knew he hasn't been thinking about his mom that much anymore, lately. Hate him more than he already does, of course. Maybe he'd start pining him to random walls _upside down_ , just to help the blood flow to his brain instead of his — instead of _other parts_.

Everything's just a problem of focus, with Stiles. It always was.

Derek kicks the door to the back of the clinic open — Stiles refuses to think of it as the _surgery room_ because no, thanks, —and takes half a step into the lounge. He keeps his good arm folded across his chest because apparently he too got in the shoulder with a nice full dose of wolfsbane, therefore his unjustified aggressiveness towards furniture is somehow justified, but Stiles still jumps into a sitting position, his legs sprawled awkwardly on two different sides of the coffee table.

Derek barely looks at him.

"Scott's fine," he says, and Stiles breathes out. Yeah, happy endings beat open endings infinity to zero.

He rubs a hand to the peach fuzz he likes to call hair.

"Good news, well, that was unexpected," he says.

Derek grunts, closes the door almost gently, and then goes to sink into the chair where Stiles was sitting all of fifteen minutes ago. He closes his eyes, seems to relax, he almost looks like he could be trying to sleep so of course Stiles clears his voice.

"So," he tries, swinging his legs. Derek bares a hint of fangs, but his eyes are no way near red under his heavy lids, so Stiles just shrugs it off and goes on. "Things didn't exactly, you know, work out the way we — you — _we_ planned. What with the hunters showing up from minute one and Jackson resisting the ketamine, which was completely unfair if you ask me, and then escaping and, yeah, well." He scrunches up his face a bit. "I did my part though! That worked out pretty well."

Derek grunts again, and tips his head back, lightly hitting the wall behind him. Stiles has the feeling he might hit it again, on purpose, and maybe hard enough to throw a hole in there, if he keeps talking.

Well, that's never been enough to shut him up anyway. 

"So, I was wondering. Any, you know, brilliant ideas for us to act on in the future? Maybe?"

Derek actually opens his eyes at that, but he looks up, to the ceiling. Stiles wonders if he's going to see the same patterns he saw — spirals and triangles and not a triskele. Really. Nope. No way. But maybe werewolves don't get spotted eyesight when they stare at the same thing for too long. Cheating motherfuckers.

"I killed Allison's mother," Derek says, in the end. Stiles is so relieved that he didn't threaten to bite his throat out he almost misses out on his words entirely.

Then it hits him, and suddenly, having your father almost-not-quite-but-well-basically fired looks like the best thing one could ever possibly do with their time.

"What?!"

Derek cringes. "Quiet, Stiles."

Stiles blinks.

"Are you _serious_?! How? _Why_?!" he whispers, as hard as he can. Derek looks at him, his eyebrows vaguely dropping down towards the root of his nose. Look at him, all upset because he took out of the picture the kinda sorta hot but still creepy as Hell murderous bitch who gave birth to the love of his favorite's Beta's life.

Jesus.

"She was trying to kill Scott," Derek explains, and suddenly, yep, Stiles is again the worst person in the room. Double Jesus.

He rubs both hands on his face, suddenly exhausted and maybe mildly hysteric. Allison's mom is dead. Derek killed her, because she was trying to kill Scott. How is this even real?

No, scratch that. How does this not even _surprise_ him anymore, not really?

"We're gonna fix this," Stiles says, hoping, believing, _waiting_. "We can fix this."

Derek just looks at him, and it's kinda weird to have him simply sitting there, tired, as inoffensive as a killing machine with claws sharp enough to cut through steel can be. Not menacing, anyway. Yup, non-murderous Derek is pretty weird. That, at least, is still something Stiles can find upsetting.

"You need to sleep, first," Derek says, and wow, way to go into the upsetting territory. Stiles might even begin to think the big bad Alpha is worrying about him.

"Sleep," he gapes back. Sleep sounds good, but also foreign, like a weird something he used to do ages ago but is not really his thing anymore. Sleep is like a normal life, basically. "Yeah, why not go sleep the sleep of the just and worthy, while a bloodthirsty lizard is wearing Jackson's skin to murder people for God only knows what higher purpose and you just killed Allison's mother so all the motherfucking hunters _in the world_ are gonna just dive on our sorry bones and maybe you forgot about it but I have a life — only one, mind you, which I can't even cheat out because _human_ , remember? No magically healing out of basically anything not laced with wolfsbane here—"

"Stiles—"

"—and, and, a _life_ , Derek, I hold very dearly onto it, even though it's right now torn to little more than pieces thanks to the injection of the supernatural I could've done perfectly well without and holy God, Derek, did you really have to kill Allison's mother? Couldn't you just, I don't know, knock her out, throw her into a wall, or is that just something you do with me? Seriously, dude! Dick move, Derek, complete, utter, incontrovertible dick move—"

"Oh my God, _Stiles_."

"What?!"

There's hands cupping his face — hands, no, not just hands, _Derek's_ hands, and Derek is suddenly all up into his personal space because why not, really. He's crouching on his heels, his wonderfully chiseled face way too close to Stiles', which should be unfamiliar and unsettling and it really isn't.

Stiles breathes.

"Yeah, that's right, breathe," Derek says, pushing his thumbs into Stiles' skin a little. Stiles is breathing. Really, thoroughly breathing, basically inhaling everything Derek has ever smelled of.

"Dude, I'm no wolf or anything and my nose is pretty average, but you smell like a bloodbath," he says, flinching at his own words because, really, that was tactful.

Derek just shrugs, though. "That's what _being_ in a bloodbath usually does to your body odor."

"Wow, sarcasm," Stiles says, pushing a hand to his chest in mock-disbelief. "You are seriously moving me."

"Shut up and breathe, Stiles," Derek says, just a hint of menace around his vowels, just not to break the habit. Stiles presses his lips together and slowly, the panic subsides, like high tide surrendering back a beach, one inch at a time. Hah. High tide. Which is all nicely wrapped around the lunar cycle's finger. So maybe Stiles is a bit of a werewolf after all.

"Did you just do your Alpha thing on me?" he asks, when his heart isn't trying anymore to explode out of his chest. Derek doesn't take a step back, though, he just untightens a little the curl of his fingers around Stiles' skull.

"Not really," he says, sounding a little apologetic. What is he sorry for, this time? That Stiles isn't a werewolf so he can't push him around to his will? Gee, great loss there. "Stiles, I want you to listen to me very careful. We'll be fine. "

Stiles barely resists the urge to roll his eyes.

Ok, he doesn't.

"Yeah, right. Of course."

Derek squeezes his jaw — which, _ow,_ hurt, — to get Stiles to look back at him.

"No, I mean it," he says, his brow furrowed in full force and how do you not believe him when he's making that face? Maybe that's why he's not completely shitty at being an Alpha after all. "We _will_ be fine. We are going to find a way out of this."

"Yeah, no, I know," Stiles says, frowning back at him. He's not as good as Derek, but hey, gold star for trying. "I mean, with my brains and your pack's scary big muscles all over the place, what do we have to fear. Right?"

"Hmm," Derek half growls and half purrs, which sounded a lot like he has no faith whatsoever in Stiles' brains, which is obviously another sign of his ginormous mental problems. Stiles is going to let it go just because Derek kept him in line during a panic attack and he's not that much of an ungrateful fuck. He learns from his mistakes, anyway.

There's a moment they're so close that Stiles is pretty sure Derek is going to push their foreheads together. Which would be just as alarming as a kiss, really.

Derek doesn't, but really, it feels just like he did. Stiles won't get any sleep tonight either, just like when his mother was in the hospital, but at least, one of the reason is slightly different. Just slightly, but still.

They'll be fine.


End file.
